Thousands of books, films, CDs, software packages, and other media
are available for classroom use. Most teachers end up choosing items
that they have seen at conferences, titles recommended by a friend
or colleague, materials displayed in the library, or products presented
by a sales rep. To help teachers look more systematically for the
materials they need, the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC)
is collecting K-12 instructional materials and has recently placed
an electronic catalog online. While it is in its fledgling stage
with about 800 items available, the Educational Materials Catalog
gives a glimpse of the ability of this tool to help teachers track
down relevant materials.

As part of the Eisenhower National Program for Mathematics and
Science Education, the ENC is located in Columbus, Ohio, and operates
under contract with The Ohio State University. The project is establishing
a national curriculum repository to support the online catalog.
In addition, ENC is compiling databases of resource, evaluation,
and support services, and plans to provide the means for teachers
to interact electronically.

On the Internet, ENC has established a gopher site that will allow
a visit. If you have telnet access to the Internet, you can reach
ENC's gopher site by telneting to enc.org
and entering the login "gopher." No password is needed, just hit
return. If you have gopher software, the Internet address for ENC's
gopher site is also enc.org. If you have a modem but are not connected
to the Internet, dial 1-800-362-4448. Set your communications software
to VT100 terminal emulation. Terminal parameters should also be
set to No parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and full duplex. When
the ENC welcome screen appears, chose C to connect to ENC online
services and login as guest.

The ENC gopher site offers the following resources:

General-Information about ENC.

Guides-Information about Internet resources that may
be useful to teachers under the headings: education, general,
government information, and sciences.

ENC Catalog of Curriculum Resources

Vocabulary-Terminology that ENC is using for catalog
development.

Federal Programs-The Guidebook to Excellence, a resource
of federal programs committed to reform in mathematics and science
education.

OERI-Information from the Office of Educational Research
and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Other Education Related Gophers-Includes gophers at
several regional consortia.

For more information concerning the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse,
call the SCIMAST toll-free number, 1-800-201-7435.